If you’ve been browsing case studies about people’s niche and authority websites and are wondering why most don’t reveal their websites and why you should ask to see their website, the answer is simpler: the barrier to entry in most cases is so low that anyone with $15 and $10 a month could completely copy their website.
Think about it. You’re reading a case study in which someone gives away their entire plan on how they got to $XXX, from content strategy to other marketing endeavors. By revealing the actual industry and website, they’re opening the doors to competition. In most cases, the copycat would not be as effective but they can still virtually copy everything and that may go unnoticed forever.
One caveat, though, is that anyone worth their salt wouldn’t be going around trying to copy other people’s industry & niches. They’re probably out there grinding away at their own websites that take up enough of their time. They also know the effort that goes into getting to 4 and 5 figures a month with a website.
Even outside of the world of websites, take for instance a Twitter account I created. All it does is post pictures all day long and gets somewhere around 2.5 million impressions and 6 thousand clicks a month to wherever I want to send the traffic. I will never reveal the account because all it takes is 1 person doesn’t like what I do to report it and get that (although minuscule) income stream taken away overnight by some stranger.
This is a tricky sport that even when you’re very successful, you don’t give away 100%. You may give away 95%, but you keep that 5% to yourself. Trade secrets if you will.
It’s a weird industry where if someone gives away that 5% (the name of their website) they’ll keep the 95% (their marketing strategies, automation, tactics, income, etc).
Then there are people like Income School that do some of their websites, and the process behind it. However, there are also a lot of websites they don’t reveal. If you look at the websites they reveal, they’re either not performing well like the outdoor one, or they’re “too big” to compete with like the photography one. But those middle of the road ones, the ones that are making 4 and 5 figures, they’ll never talk about those.
It’s a lot easier to be called a fake, fraudster, and whatever else by not revealing that 5%, then an honest guy that gives a lot of value but is broke because people are copying your most successful websites and running negative campaigns on your assets.